Ethiopian is my favourite food to eat if we are going out for dinner. Ethiopian restaurant service goes against the Kenyan way by having food prepared quickly and the service rushed with the servers almost moving about with a speed walk. This whole plate of food pictured below, which could have probably fed an entire family, cost us 600 shillings, around $3.50 Canadian dollars each. Even though a nice meal prepared quickly is a treat, one thing I have always loved about Kenyan restaurants is how when you go for a nice dinner, you can spend your entire night there. The service is slow but it’s an experience in itself. Warm water is boiled and the server circles the table washing every diner’s hand by pouring the warm water from a kettle onto your hands over a basin. At home it is alright if you choose to eat with your left hand, but in a restaurant, it is considered extremely rude. Although a lot of food in Kenya is eaten without utensils, in the most common “fast-food” joints in Nairobi, being chicken and chips, you are expected to eat your chips with toothpicks. No major fast food joints, like McDonalds exist in Kenya. The most popular fried food is kuku, chips, samosas, and sausages.
Since leaving Mlolongo and living with my friend in a different area of Nairobi I have had to become much more independent in terms of feeding myself. Almost every residential area in Nairobi is within a compound. Security is emphasized here and gated communities no matter what standard of living are common ground. Within every compound are “shops”. These little community run shops, which about the size of a large closet, sell the necessities. Bread, mandazi, eggs, milk, fruit, vegetables, lentils, soda, rice, sugar. matches, cleaning detergent, toilet paper, and phone credit, are the most common items you’ll find in a shop.
I rarely venture out of the compound when it comes to buying groceries for us to eat. I have learnt to live real simple, and for very cheap. A half litre of milk, which comes in a triangular packet is 30 bob, a loaf of bread, 40 bob, and fruit and vegetables come cheap too. The fruit stand lady within our compound always knows what I want when I arrive at her shop. “One mango, two bananas, and two avocados… one for today, and one for tomorrow”. Mangos and avocados go for 20 bob a piece, and bananas are 5 bob each.
Almost every meal in Kenyan households is served warm. Salima, back in Mlolongo always looked on in dismay whenever we dug out leftovers from the fridge and would eat it cold. “Cold rice and beans… you must warm it, you’ll fall sick!” When ordering drinks in restaurants, it is always served warm, unless you ask for it cold, and you’ll never find ice anywhere in a restaurant. Milk is also almost always warmed if being served alone. Mostly milk is used for chai though, which is considered the national obsession. Equal parts of milk and water are boiled with the tea, and usually ginger and a large amount of sugar is added to make the perfect cup of chai. Kenyans love everything with either lots of sugar or lots of salt. Even juices are typically warmed, especially for children.
As for street food, while waiting in Nairobi traffic, children walk through the lines of matatus, boda bodas, and cars, usually offering small paper rolled cones filled with peanuts, sugar cane, and fruit. Fruit stands are also common outside the residential compounds, as well as sugar cane being sold by men who machete the pieces straight from the large sticks of sugar cane in a wheel barrow. Corn being grilled is also common in town and near our house.
Although it is cheap and easy to eat healthy here, having fresh fruit and vegetables readily available outside our doorstep, other items such as meat and more western food is hard to purchase and consume regularly. The three major supermarket chains here, Uchumi, Nakumatt, and Tusky’s, offer these items, but they can be expensive. I am perfectly content with food I eat here though, and could live on mangos, avocados, mandazi, rice, and lentils. If only it was that inexpensive and easy to nourish yourself in Canada.
Last month, after returning home from a visit up country with her family, Salima splurged on a chicken from town, carrying it home with her to make us a “feast”. Being Muslim, Salima has to slaughter the chicken herself, so meat was a rare treat when I lived there. So after about three hours of listening to an annoying chicken run around our backyard tied to our door with a string, the noise stopped.
